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Mattie on the Homefront is a podcast about a father and a son discovering their family. After finding wartime letters from my great-grandmother to my grandfather, I get to read them aloud to my dad, bringing together four generations of our family, week-by-week, in an almost daily look at life in the Twin Cities during WWII.
Happy Father's Day, dad.
Steve Buetow:Oh, thank you, Hans.
Hans Buetow:You're welcome. What a good son I am. Let's celebrate Father's Day in the way that I think people celebrate Father's Day. Let's talk about Christmas trees.
Steve Buetow:Oh, good transition. Just have
Hans Buetow:a quick question. What was the Christmas tree topper that you had every year when you were a kid?
Steve Buetow:It was one of those glass, really fine thin glass ornaments.
Hans Buetow:Okay.
Steve Buetow:And, you know, I can't remember. It might have been a star. It might have been an angel.
Hans Buetow:I'm very pleased to say, mom?
Cathy de Moll:Yes?
Hans Buetow:What was a Christmas tree topper from your childhood?
Cathy de Moll:It was always an angel. Was it the
Hans Buetow:same angel all the time, or was it
Cathy de Moll:It was the same angel, and I and my mom made sure that we all had similar angels when we left home.
Steve Buetow:Does sound like your mom.
Cathy de Moll:Doesn't it?
Hans Buetow:And that so then that's the angel that I had growing up. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, hello, and welcome to Mattie On The Homefront.
Hans Buetow:I'm Hans Buteau. I'm Steve Buteau. And this is the podcast where we take the letters that my great grandmother
Steve Buetow:My grandmother.
Hans Buetow:Wrote to her son, my grandfather
Steve Buetow:Ken, my dad.
Hans Buetow:1942 to 1945. So we have this trove of letters, these amazing letters, when Ken was off in the army in World War two, and we're going through them one at a time from September 1942 all the way through the end of the war nineteen forty five. Today is, Tuesday, 11/17/1942. So last time, it was such a fun letter to read through just two days ago her recounting of the wedding of Gweny and George. Now I'm very pleased to have here in the shop both my parents.
Hans Buetow:And
Steve Buetow:we're pleased to be here.
Hans Buetow:So Kathy is my mom. Hi, Kathy.
Cathy de Moll:Hi,
Steve Buetow:Hans. Welcome to welcome to
Hans Buetow:the show. It's very pleased to have you here today because you actually knew some of these people and some of them quite well.
Cathy de Moll:Yes. Absolutely. Most of the characters that that you've introduced so far are people that I knew or knew about Yeah. In some detail.
Steve Buetow:Right. Unfortunately, Mattie died about the day we were married.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. By the day. That's true. Yeah. July 17.
Steve Buetow:Within a week of of when we were married.
Cathy de Moll:Yeah. We were married in Pennsylvania, and your parents were out at the wedding. Yeah. That's right. Your dad kinda missed the whole thing.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. Mattie was in memory care and not coherent at all. I'm not sure if she even knew who Ken was.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Wow. So, Kathy, did you ever meet Mattie?
Cathy de Moll:I never met her. Okay. Heard a lot about her. Yeah. Heard even more about Steve's grandfather, but I I never met Mattie.
Hans Buetow:I didn't either, obviously. Because if she died basically a week that you were married,
Cathy de Moll:well, that's not true. Yeah. You know,
Hans Buetow:anything can happen. People get married for
Cathy de Moll:that Let's clarify that.
Hans Buetow:All the time.
Cathy de Moll:Can I just mention something that I've I've as you were introducing this, it suddenly occurred to me that, you have compiled all the letters from your grandmother going out to a soldier in the war, and my family has collected letters from my father who was in the war? And and in both cases, we don't have the responses. We only have so we have dad's letters home
Steve Buetow:Oh, yeah.
Cathy de Moll:And nothing from mom to him. Yeah. And you have Mattie's letters to Ken and nothing from him. So it's a really interesting parallel.
Steve Buetow:And it seems more likely that the letters from the soldier would be saved in the house where he's writing
Cathy de Moll:Right.
Steve Buetow:Rather than the other way. So that I think the one that we are documenting is an unusual case.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. That's true. He saved all of them and carried them. Well, carried them with him is an extreme because he was probably in the same spot. So Ken is in Canada right now, which is where he will spend a lot of the war.
Hans Buetow:Yes. There will come a point where his unit will get moved to Hawaii, but at but he'll spend most of the time in Prince Rupert, Canada.
Steve Buetow:Which is just across the bay from Alaska.
Hans Buetow:So he's military police up there. So he may have had an easier time saving
Cathy de Moll:letters than my third day. In the battle of the bulge, he was move on the move, and he didn't receive a lot of the letters because most of his letters said, I haven't heard from you. I haven't heard from you. Oh, inter
Hans Buetow:oh, interesting. Yeah. The we've found that the the talk about the reliability of the mail service is when did you get this, when did you not, is a really big topic. Actually, it's a great segue because we we always start with looking at the at the envelopes, and you haven't seen one of these yet. No.
Hans Buetow:So go ahead and tell us what's on that.
Cathy de Moll:Private Kenneth Buto, two thirty eighth MP company, A P 0997, Seattle, Washington.
Hans Buetow:So that brings us to Tuesday, 11/17/1942. We're gonna, this is a short letter, so we're gonna move through two, and our second letter today is a bit of a doozy, but we're starting with Tuesday, 11/17/1942. So we are preparing for Thanksgiving. This is the frame of mind I want you in. And so this will be the first Thanksgiving without Ken and without Bud, who is Ken's stepbrother.
Hans Buetow:Matt is the figurehead in the family.
Steve Buetow:And Mattie's husband. Second husband.
Hans Buetow:Yes. And that becomes important today because the first husband makes an appearance. We start with my darling Ken. It just wouldn't be Monday morning if I didn't get my letter. I was so happy to get it.
Hans Buetow:I am always so thrilled. Yes. I can see where you're kept pretty busy, but you certainly are faithful in writing, and I appreciate it more than words can express. I miss you more and more each day, dear. And the reason that I asked you about Christmas toppers even before Thanksgiving is because her next paragraph is, we had said we wouldn't have a tree, but if you want us to, we will.
Hans Buetow:But we would certainly be happy to have you here to enjoy it with us. It can't possibly be trimmed, however, the way you trim them. So don't see it in your mind's eye the way you fix them up.
Steve Buetow:Ken was amazing with Christmas trees. All sorts of different things. And when space became a problem, he would get a small tree, cut the branches off of one side, drill holes in the other side, and put the branches in so it was extra dense, and then he would hang it on the wall.
Hans Buetow:Okay. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Hans Buetow:So he would cut it lengthwise? Not through the branch, but he
Steve Buetow:would cut all the branches off
Hans Buetow:On one side.
Steve Buetow:Off one side. Yep. Move them around to the other side and put them into holes that he drilled. Super bushy. Super bushy.
Steve Buetow:And then he didn't want it taking up floor space, and it was also hard to clean up underneath. And so it would the coffee table would be slid underneath that, and it would hang on the wall.
Hans Buetow:Do you remember this guy?
Cathy de Moll:Oh, I do remember it. And I also remember that it happened at the very last minute. Really? Because he was busy making Christmas cards. We would all go over and help him make Christmas cards, which would be sold at the church bazaar.
Cathy de Moll:We didn't have time, and I don't think an inclination. I don't know if it was because the trees were cheaper towards Christmas or what it was, but it
Steve Buetow:One was day, he gave Kurt, my brother, and I, $5 and said, go down to the Y and pick out a tree. So we walked the six blocks to the YMCA where there was a tree sales place, bought a tree, and carried it, the two of us, back to the house.
Cathy de Moll:People generally didn't celebrate Christmas for the length of time that they do now. We didn't start at Thanksgiving. It was Christmas Eve around a little bit before that that
Hans Buetow:Yep. So the thing I do wanna point out, there's November 17 right now, and Mattie is responding to Ken telling her not to get a tree. So the two of them are already having a dialogue about what Christmas should look like for them. Okay. We haven't seen Mattie say anything about Christmas, which leads me to believe that Ken is bringing up Christmas to Mattie.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. And Ken has independently, in one of his letters that we don't have, said, mom, no. No. It's really important to me, which you can kind of imagine.
Cathy de Moll:Yeah. He wants things to be the same at home.
Hans Buetow:He wants to be able to picture the thing he wants to be able to picture that that, like, fills his heart with a certain sentiment. Yep. Yeah. But so he had this elaborate tree setup. Was his tree trimming?
Hans Buetow:Because she's talking about his trimming Yep. And setting all the ornaments. Was his tree trimming elaborate and exciting? There were quite a number of
Steve Buetow:blown globes.
Hans Buetow:Like the glass ones.
Steve Buetow:The glass ones. Yeah. Yes. But some years, we would pop popcorn and string garlands of popcorn. He would never leave it as a given.
Steve Buetow:It was a palette for expression.
Cathy de Moll:That's interesting because my memory, which would have been later in his life, was that he sort of shrugged and said, well, I guess we have to have a tree, and then he'd go get it, and he'd do the minimum. But either that's my memory or it's just over the years, he lost enthusiasm for it.
Steve Buetow:Interesting. Yeah.
Hans Buetow:So Mattie continues with, well, today, I worked very hard getting the house in order for my circle tomorrow as I was trying to line up my food. I don't believe I will have over a dozen, so that won't be too bad. So circle is
Steve Buetow:The ladies' aid. The ladies' So that would be the name for a committee.
Hans Buetow:A committee. Yeah. Of some sort. So she's having the committee over. She just gives us a summary of the rest of the time.
Hans Buetow:She says the weather has been grand. Got to 60. November 17 got to 60.
Steve Buetow:That's good.
Hans Buetow:And I hope it stays for a while, so don't make the winter too long. Dad went out this morning, and dad is Matt Mickelson. Matt Mickelson. Dad went out this morning, and I've been up since 05:30, and I'm pretty tired. Georgina was here.
Hans Buetow:Georgina is a friend of theirs, and I baked some fresh baking powder biscuits and had coffee when she stopped in from Minneapolis. She said she mailed you some cigarettes. Your dad was a smoker.
Steve Buetow:My dad was a devoted lucky strikes pack in half a day. Wow.
Hans Buetow:That was involuntary. That wow for my mother was involuntary. Did you know him as a smoker?
Cathy de Moll:I don't think so.
Steve Buetow:He quit in 1968. '67.
Hans Buetow:Wow. Yeah. That's so interesting. Yeah. Well, she concludes by saying Monday, I washed in the afternoon.
Hans Buetow:We picked up Graham and went to see grandma Mick. So Graham is her mom Julia. And grandma Mick is grandma Mick Olsen, who is Matt's mom. She's a we'll hear a lot about her coming out. She's a Norwegian force, apparently.
Hans Buetow:But they picked up Graham and went to see grandma Mick. She always asks about you. She seems to be slipping. In the evening, I went to Altar Guild. Maya, I certainly enjoy that.
Hans Buetow:We learned so much. We have such a wonderful devotion. It makes one feel so good. We got into church for that. I just love it.
Steve Buetow:Altar guild would be in charge of of all the the vestments, the decoration of the altar Okay. Making sure the candles are proper and taken care of. Thanksgiving would have had Cornucopia. Some yes.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Yeah. So just volunteering. This is a thing that we hear from her a lot, we're gonna hear a lot more about in just a moment because she concludes, well, darling, I must close and get myself to bed. It is after 11PM.
Hans Buetow:God bless you and keep you safe from all harm always. Yours loving mom. So that's 11/17/1942. We're gonna take a quick break, and we're gonna come back three days later with 11/20/1942. So now it's Friday morning.
Hans Buetow:The letter itself says Friday morning, 07:15AM. We have a time stamp on this one. Friday morning, 07:15AM, 11/20/1942. Mattie is sitting down at her typewriter. My darling, Ken.
Hans Buetow:Your nice 11:11 eleven letter arrived Wednesday as I was entertaining my circle. And since I was so terribly busy, I didn't get to answer it before. Besides, I like to sit down in the quiet of myself, then I can just concentrate better.
Cathy de Moll:That's nice. Isn't that lovely?
Hans Buetow:I just got back from Minneapolis taking dad to work and just finished my breakfast.
Steve Buetow:Oh, interesting. He would she would drop him off at the train station, no doubt. He sorted mail on the train.
Hans Buetow:Dad, the Gertsons
Steve Buetow:were The Gertsons. Were Chuck was the best man at my father's and mother's wedding.
Hans Buetow:And so at this point, really, really good friends. And I bring this up because the next paragraph is a really interesting look into the life of a soldier, specifically Chuck. Missus Gertzen called again yesterday telling me she had gotten another letter from Chuck, and he was so concerned he hadn't heard from you. He's growing a mustache.
Steve Buetow:Oh, he had a mustache that was twirled and up all the way up to his the the top of his cheeks.
Hans Buetow:What? Twirl.
Steve Buetow:Yes. Oh, yeah. Twirl. A waxed just I met him maybe once or twice.
Hans Buetow:Oh, I can that's great. Well, okay. So this says he's growing a mustache. He says the cook often forgets to strain the coffee, so that is his main reason. Straining the coffee through his mustache.
Hans Buetow:That's funny. That's funny. I mean, she's quoting him.
Steve Buetow:Right. So she appreciated the humor.
Hans Buetow:She appreciated the humor. This lady has a sense. This is what we're trying to decide. Does she have a sense of humor? And I contend yes.
Steve Buetow:Oh, yes.
Hans Buetow:I contend yes. I guess they're training him, says Mattie, as he outlined a day's work like this. On his back, he carries a drum of wire weighing 40 pounds, his pack, a rifle, gas mask, and a few other things I've forgotten, and then he lets the wire unwind, walking miles through the jungle. You unwind four like that and wind them up again beside climbing poles. He ought to be losing weight.
Hans Buetow:So this is we're assuming that this is telegraph. This is Oh. Overland communication wires is what we're assuming. Right? Because it wouldn't have been power, I don't think.
Steve Buetow:No. It wouldn't have been no. It would have been much heavier wire if it was power. Yeah. Yep.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Four spools of 40 pounds walking through the jungle and then back.
Steve Buetow:Right. Rewinding it. Woah.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Well, Mattie continues then. How many days are you from Seattle, and you travel by train or boat? If by train, reply in the following code. Quote, I'm glad you can take your trip, etcetera, etcetera, and it shouldn't take you over x x x days, end quote.
Cathy de Moll:So she's giving him a coded response Yeah. That only she knows the answer to? Because it's being
Hans Buetow:They all get read as censored? Yeah. So she's trying to ascertain how many days from Seattle he is.
Cathy de Moll:That's really interesting. And that maybe through other codes, they've she's figured it out. I remember my dad would write home and say he was in they knew he was in England for a while, but they didn't know where, and he couldn't say. Yeah. So he said, I'm in the town just like the one next to us, which is Wallingford.
Steve Buetow:Oh.
Cathy de Moll:They were lit lived in Swarthmore, and Wallingford was the next town. Yeah. And so he had a code to tell them, and I bet all the soldiers found ways to tell their parents where they were.
Hans Buetow:That's super interesting.
Steve Buetow:That is interesting.
Hans Buetow:And I think she's assuming that the person who reads the next letter from Ken will not be the person who read this letter from
Steve Buetow:her,
Hans Buetow:and therefore, it's safe to Yeah. Just say the code out loud. Just
Steve Buetow:use this code.
Hans Buetow:So, actually, we are deciding that that's not funny. That's actually her
Steve Buetow:No. She's she's serious.
Cathy de Moll:She's serious. She's engineering a way to find out where he is.
Hans Buetow:That's amazing.
Steve Buetow:She does kinda like playing with the idea.
Hans Buetow:Probably a little. Yeah. But the next line, this complicates it. We got quite a kick out of the way you told Jin where you were.
Cathy de Moll:See? They all have codes. Mhmm.
Hans Buetow:You're thinking that's another code. Oh, yeah. You're so smart. You're so smart. I wonder what it was.
Cathy de Moll:Well, I mean, it would be some reference that he and his friend had in common that he could he could twist to be a clue.
Hans Buetow:So I gotta tell you his fiancee. That is quite a friend. Yeah.
Steve Buetow:So
Hans Buetow:Oh. Jin is Virginia. Oh, Virginia. Yeah. Who's his mysterious, friend who, we we found another photo of the other day.
Steve Buetow:Yes. We do.
Hans Buetow:We now have two photos, but no last name yet.
Steve Buetow:So
Hans Buetow:fingers crossed because Mattie seems close to Virginia. She will let slip Virginia's last name and we'll be able to open up a whole new avenue of interrogation.
Steve Buetow:Right. Clearly, Virginia has disappeared at some point. She's not my mom.
Hans Buetow:She's not your mom. That's exactly right. So now Mattie moves from responding to Ken. This is generally how these letters work. She goes into the reporting part, the diaristic part, and so she's having ladies aide circle come over.
Hans Buetow:And so she tells us all about it. She says, well, Wednesday, I had nine ladies to a luncheon. I served chili con carne, parentheses. Remember how you used to like it. A cranberry turkey, olives, pickles, and jam.
Steve Buetow:Turkey?
Hans Buetow:A cranberry turkey. That's one thing. There's no comma there. A cranberry turkey. Okay.
Hans Buetow:Olives, pickles, and jam, and some fresh baked half and half rolls, half whole wheat and half white, and some hot chocolate pudding with whipped cream.
Steve Buetow:My goodness.
Hans Buetow:And partly, this is interesting because she continues by saying, for a time, we were unable to buy whipped cream, but now you can buy a half a pint. Half a pint of cream. Rationing. Yes. Absolute
Cathy de Moll:rationing. Spend it on a party.
Hans Buetow:Well, it was a good party because she says we had a very nice meeting. Missus Neagard came also. She had choice words for missus Neagard a couple of times ago, and she was like, oh, I'm have to deal with missus Neagard if I get made president of the Ladies Aid Society, which she has been elected but wants to turn down. Yeah. So this is her navigating, does she wanna take on more responsibility within this group of ladies?
Hans Buetow:So missus Nygard came also. Guess she was hinting for an invitation as she called and said she wanted to take me to a smorgasbord at Jehovah, which she noticed I was entertaining. But I told her that it was at noon and that if I she wanted to come, we could go over there later. I didn't let her get out of it. What a sentence.
Hans Buetow:Woah. Ouch.
Steve Buetow:And Jehovah encompasses a lot of politics. And Jehovah is the church, the neighborhood church. The neighborhood Lutheran church four blocks away, which was deeply involved with her ex husband.
Cathy de Moll:I find it really interesting that she, gives all these details to her son. I mean, you know, one doesn't go into great detail about a party with one's son usually. It just you know, would he be interested?
Steve Buetow:I'm guessing that at the dinner table, if he were there in town and had just come home from work, he would get those details.
Cathy de Moll:Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Buetow:And so I think it's it's, in some ways, a continuation of their relationship. Yeah.
Hans Buetow:But it speaks to a close relationship.
Cathy de Moll:Does speak to a close relationship.
Hans Buetow:There are dynamics that she's implying, which we can kind of also glean through context clues, but that he would have been very familiar with about the inner workings of, like, what missus Nygard represents to Mattie and the, like, the where she fits into the ecosystem of Mattie's very busy world. Yes. We had Becky, your niece Becky, on last week who made this amazing point about normalcy and about the desire for continued normalcy, which is what we're talking about with the Christmas trees
Cathy de Moll:Right.
Hans Buetow:A little bit is for herself and probably for Ken, they both need to know that life continues, and there's a reason for the fighting. There's a reason for the rationing. There's a reason for the death. There's a reason for the news. There's a reason for everything that's happening because it's frankly, it's horrifying.
Hans Buetow:Yes. But about missus Nygard, Mattie continues, of course, you know how very tasty these smorgasbords are. Every kind of conglomeration and really nothing worthwhile to eat.
Steve Buetow:Oh. The curse of the potluck.
Hans Buetow:So what tone do you read that in?
Steve Buetow:Complaining.
Hans Buetow:Okay.
Steve Buetow:And she really did not enjoy the food that other people brought. Other people brought.
Cathy de Moll:Gee. I don't know anybody like that.
Hans Buetow:She says, looking at my father. That was a very pointed look that I was privileged enough to see and tell everyone
Steve Buetow:about. My diatribe. I don't. Do you really want me to
Hans Buetow:do that? Maybe not. Maybe not.
Cathy de Moll:I'm I I interpreted it as that she made all the food. This was a this was a potluck.
Steve Buetow:This is a potluck.
Cathy de Moll:Which is very Midwestern.
Hans Buetow:So this she's talking about two different parties concurrently right now. Okay. She's talking about her luncheon, which she definitely made all the food for, and then the Jehovah's smorgasbord.
Steve Buetow:Okay. Okay.
Cathy de Moll:I didn't get
Hans Buetow:that. Folks made. Yeah. It's it's con she's and this is where Ken would have, hopefully, understood the way that she was telling this, is that she's moving back and forth between two parties. Gotcha.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Because she says, however, they were glad to see me at Jehovah, and I brought a pair of pillowcases as I didn't like to leave there empty handed. What? I think you don't go to church without having contributed something to the war effort.
Steve Buetow:Oh, I see.
Hans Buetow:Right? I take that.
Steve Buetow:I thought she was filling up pillowcases with food to god.
Hans Buetow:I didn't like the food, but I wanted it as much as I could.
Cathy de Moll:My share.
Hans Buetow:Pillowcases full of it. Okay. You know, let's go with that interpretation because that's that's a much much funnier image to carry I
Steve Buetow:can see her walking home.
Hans Buetow:A pillowcase over each shoulder. Just just dripping cranberry turkey out the back.
Cathy de Moll:Whatever that is. Oh, amazing. Cranberry turkey.
Steve Buetow:Amazing.
Hans Buetow:This I find really fascinating where she keeps going. Same paragraph, by the way, where she's economizing on space, but we're changing topics because she says, in the evening, I went to get dad, and just before I left, pastor Simonson called and said he wanted to talk over some things with me. So pastor Simonson is the pastor at their church. They don't go to Jehovah for worship. That's their community center, but they don't worship there because Carl worships there.
Steve Buetow:Mhmm. Yes. Carl was instrument. He designed the church, and he designed the addition to the church.
Hans Buetow:An altar.
Steve Buetow:Yes. Yep. And so they go to Christ Lutheran, which is Norwegian Lutheran.
Hans Buetow:Norwegian. And Carl is Ken's father, Mattie's first husband. And so pastor Simonson, he arrived, Mattie says, around 09:00 and stayed and talked until 01:30, trying to persuade me to take the presidency of the ladies' aide.
Cathy de Moll:What? 01:30 in the morning?
Hans Buetow:The he she doesn't say, but this is what I'm assuming. Right? So she goes to pick up she she called in the evening and wanted to talk over some things. He arrived about 09:00 and stayed and talked until 01:30. I take that to mean Yeah.
Hans Buetow:He was there all past midnight. That's, what, five and
Steve Buetow:a half hours?
Hans Buetow:What? Convincing. So she explains a little bit. Of course, he didn't talk on that one subject all the while, but every once in a while, he was back to it again. I had fully made up my mind to hand in my resignation as I felt that was one way of getting out of it because that's no easy job.
Hans Buetow:I hate to be hurt, and one will get plenty out if you try to please 75 women.
Steve Buetow:No comment.
Hans Buetow:I tried to point out that I'm at the lake so much during the summer. And now with gas rationing, I may have to go out and stay put as you can't go far on four gallons a week.
Steve Buetow:Oh, no.
Hans Buetow:One can save up your gas. That is you don't have to buy it every week. You can buy a two month supply at one time. Our senators are trying very hard to postpone it, but in the East, they are already cut down to three gallons. So I don't think there's much chance after December 1.
Hans Buetow:I talked to missus Schmitz yesterday about our oil for the lake, but we don't have to sign a ration card until spring for that. There's a lot here. Yes. First, let's talk about the thing she ended with, which is which is rationing. The rationing is going is getting more and more strict.
Hans Buetow:They've already had tires rationed.
Steve Buetow:Right. Started in October?
Hans Buetow:Or The rationing starts in November. It starts right about now. Yes. And it's a big deal. So they've already had speed limit reductions.
Hans Buetow:They can go maximum of 35 miles an hour, and now they have gas rationing, which was done by grade. Depending on your service to the war, you got an a, b, or a c, which allowed you to a certain amount of gas. But people would find there was a lot of grifting, a lot of people frauding and try and and finding ways to be able to move up and get more gas for themselves. But what it meant for people like Mattie is actually she's saying is the limit of what people were able to do is a big culture of cabins in Minnesota of people going up north, and that radius of where people could get to on a tank of gas went way down Yeah. Because they couldn't get access to it.
Hans Buetow:So all the places way up north, International Falls, all these places farther up north suddenly, are dependent on the tourism from the twin cities, start hurting a ton starting
Cathy de Moll:in the
Hans Buetow:end of nineteen forty two because they just can't. People can't get there. Places like Mille Lacs that are, like, one car, one gas tank away Yep. Booming. Just booming because that's the limit of what everybody could suddenly get to.
Steve Buetow:And they're a bit for the north in Mille Lacs. They are.
Cathy de Moll:They could get there, but they'd have to wait a week to get back. Yeah.
Hans Buetow:Exactly. Because they can only buy so much gas. And so she's saying, like, maybe we go up and don't come back, which for Matt, you know, how how much can he do that? Because he's working. How much could she just stay up there?
Hans Buetow:I think they're trying to figure it out, but it's a really interesting dynamic. Yeah.
Cathy de Moll:Yep. And it's the consequences that you don't ever that don't occur to you when you're thinking about all of this.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. So she's in the middle of deciding, I guess. Because she says yesterday, Thursday morning, so this is the next morning after staying up till 01:30 in the morning with the pastor, we stayed in bed until 09:30. That's unusual, but since we don't have to get up early for anyone, we took advantage of it and made up for some of the time we lost Wednesday night to pastor Simon. Yes.
Hans Buetow:I baked a batch of donuts yesterday. Wish you had some and didn't accomplish much more as it seems it takes all the next day to put away your silver dishes and the like after a party. Haven't even got my ironing done yet. This morning, I'm going to Red Cross sewing. Whole different volunteer thing.
Hans Buetow:Yes. Secular. I haven't been since last spring. I felt the one week I was home in between lake trips didn't pay, and so far, I haven't gotten started. It seems there's always something to do.
Hans Buetow:I've been trying to get caught up in my sewing and changing things. Now I really enjoy it since I have Mattie. Her form. Oh, had a form built of herself. Oh.
Hans Buetow:She got measured. She had it built, and it's set up in Ken's room.
Cathy de Moll:And she named it Mattie, which is
Hans Buetow:a it Mattie.
Cathy de Moll:Play on her own name.
Steve Buetow:Yes.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. The next paragraph, I need some unpacking from the two of you. Oh, says Mattie. By the way, I was supposed to go to court and sign off on that lien I held on the old man's property last Saturday, and I completely forgot about it. Oh my goodness.
Hans Buetow:Okay, folks. What a reaction. Tell me why such a strong reaction.
Steve Buetow:Because the old man Yeah. The old man. Is my grandfather, Carl. Yeah. And Carl is a force even at his funeral, the pastor would talk about how stubborn he was, which was a euphemian.
Steve Buetow:That's as good as it got.
Hans Buetow:That's the most generous read. Yes. Yes.
Steve Buetow:Contrary, bitter, resentful, and would carry grudges forever.
Hans Buetow:Mom, you knew him. Right?
Cathy de Moll:Oh, absolutely. I knew him. He was an influence to our on our early marriage, I think.
Hans Buetow:Yes. An influence. Say more about that.
Cathy de Moll:Well, he was so he was quite demanding. And Steve's father, Ken, was not on good terms with him, so he would turn to Steve for whatever he needed. I mean, he was very demanding. You know, I need this now. You need to do this for me.
Cathy de Moll:And Steve would kinda react. And even when we had I mean, I remember we had two kids, and we would go out to
Steve Buetow:Yeah.
Cathy de Moll:To his house to
Steve Buetow:Oh, Trying to get Hans, a three year old Yep. And Carl, an 83 year old, across the street, whereas one wouldn't move and the other wouldn't stop moving. And both had to have their hands held.
Hans Buetow:That's great. That's well, that sums up a lot. Holy moly. I remember him. Do you?
Hans Buetow:I do. I mean, I was young when he died, but
Cathy de Moll:I being afraid of
Hans Buetow:him? Yes.
Steve Buetow:Oh, yes.
Hans Buetow:I very much Because my memory my only memory of him, I will say.
Cathy de Moll:Because towards the end, we were at the house very I think you went every every I thought you went every day.
Steve Buetow:More than once a
Cathy de Moll:week. Yeah.
Steve Buetow:Yeah.
Cathy de Moll:And I remember you guys, you and Jesse, your brother, playing cheerfully around the house. But every time you'd get near something he worried about, he'd go
Steve Buetow:When we were gonna smash it.
Cathy de Moll:Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I'm sure
Steve Buetow:A a very dramatic example of that was he had his riding lawn mower, which he would drive around with his pith helmet on, which was quite Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Steve Buetow:With Yeah. This. He stopped it in the driveway, and the two boy you and your brother fascinating. Went to look at it. Oh, it's so cool.
Steve Buetow:Don't touch that. Don't touch that. And you touched it.
Hans Buetow:Because it's fascinating. You were fascinated, and you kinda snuck a
Steve Buetow:hand in and just don't touch that. And you pulled back quickly, and you were completely silent. Yeah. You had touched the muffler. Oh.
Steve Buetow:Oh. Your hand was completely blistered.
Hans Buetow:Oh.
Steve Buetow:And you were completely silent. You were clearly intimidated and did not wanna cry out or complain Yeah. About what you felt because you were told not to touch it. You touched it anyway, and now you had this burn on your hand.
Hans Buetow:I might need to go to therapy for that. Excuse me. I gotta call I have some people to call.
Steve Buetow:Sorry, mom.
Cathy de Moll:The reason the reason that I gasped when you read that was I don't think it's normal for for an in a divorce that the wife would put a lien on her husband's house, which gives you some indication of, you know, he owed her, and I'm sure he did, and that he wasn't gonna pay her. He was so tight with money. But I was really surprised that she missed it because it must have meant a lot to her to have done that. So why she missed the the court hearing is kind of an interesting thing. One thing about about his his cheapness with money, every every Christmas, he would give us a check.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. $305,100 dollars.
Cathy de Moll:Okay. You know, for the time, it was a sizable check. Yeah. And he would hold it out to Steve, And as Steve reached up to get it, he would snatch it away. Oh.
Cathy de Moll:And he'd say, have you been nice enough to me this year? I'm not sure. And then he'd put it out again, and Steve would reach for it, and then he'd snatch
Hans Buetow:it back. Oh. Was so
Cathy de Moll:horrible. It was so humiliating.
Steve Buetow:And then we always had the problem of what to give him for Christmas. Yeah. And so we would you know, he could we would bake bread. We would do personalized things for him, and we finally started giving him a check for $25. Yeah.
Steve Buetow:And that made him happy. Yes. So he would give us a thousand. We would give him 25, and that made him happy.
Hans Buetow:Oh. Yeah. I think you you know, if you're like, wow. They're being super mean to this sweet old man. Let me interject and say, no.
Hans Buetow:No. This man was a son of a bitch. Carl I have Carl's correspondences. I inherited his the letters that he wrote, and this is the letters that he wrote to Ken, but also that he wrote to just about everyone else. Mhmm.
Hans Buetow:And, universally, every letter, he is not just mean. He is nasty. He is petty. He is Threatening. Threatening.
Hans Buetow:He's threatening the city because his sidewalks are like, the curbs are too tall. He's threatening the church because they didn't put the thing that he designed for them in a prominent enough place. He's threatening this guy because he talks too much at the at the pharmacy. He's like, it's bonkers the the amount of ire that this man has for people who don't fit into his very, very narrow worldview that centers him. He just has no patience for people.
Hans Buetow:Yes. And so Mattie being a little bit upset by him, and it makes some sense to me you know it's actually a little hard to imagine him married to somebody like Mattie he eventually gets married to or at this point is married to a woman in my
Steve Buetow:dad Ida
Hans Buetow:Ida who my I will say it in public. My father has said is maybe the dumbest woman alive.
Steve Buetow:Well, she's not. Not. Right. Yeah. She Ida was remarkable because she could be boring on any subject.
Cathy de Moll:Which But you can see why. I mean, he needed a sycophant. Yes. Maybe she didn't ever figure it out, but her being as thick as she was, and she really was. I mean, it was surprising.
Cathy de Moll:Yeah. It meant less conflict. Yeah. And he was so awful to everybody else, and somehow she had found a way by not confronting him about anything and not even understanding what people were talking about
Steve Buetow:Yeah.
Cathy de Moll:To make it work. You And can get
Hans Buetow:a sense from the tone. Even just this one letter, much less all of the letters that we've read, Mattie would not be a match for this man's personality.
Cathy de Moll:Doesn't seem like it. I why on earth did she marry him?
Hans Buetow:What a question.
Steve Buetow:They went to school together. Okay. They went to grade school together.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Little kids school together. Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Buetow:They knew each long time. Photograph of the whole class of '19 o '4. Yeah. And Mattie's with her sister in the front row just quietly with bows on their heads. And in the back row is a handsome little young man,
Hans Buetow:Carl. Carl.
Steve Buetow:So they knew each other for a long time, and then the church literature talking about the congregation would have pairs of couples,
Hans Buetow:and Mattie and and Carl were were an item. Interesting. So small community, possibly. Maybe he changed once he got older. It's I mean, we don't really know.
Hans Buetow:He did change quite
Steve Buetow:a bit. Yes.
Hans Buetow:Because they had been divorced quite a while. I mean, they're both remarried at this point. Yes. I think Ken's only 21.
Steve Buetow:Yeah.
Hans Buetow:So
Cathy de Moll:Yeah. So when did the lien on the house happen and and why? It seems like an extreme measure for her to get some money out of him, and that means that implies that he didn't that the divorce well, except the lien would have been done part of the divorce. But somehow she needed money from him, and so I'm really surprised that she and wasn't paying.
Steve Buetow:It might have been enforced by the court afterward. If he wasn't paying, there might have been
Cathy de Moll:Yeah. Oh, right.
Steve Buetow:Okay. But my brother Kurt would say that Ken complained to him about being sent as a 10 or 12 year old to Carl to ask for money. Oh, wow. And it was quite a traumatic
Cathy de Moll:Oh, no. Really? Yes. By his mother?
Steve Buetow:By his mother. Oh. Oh. So he would just you know, the cute little boy would go to his father's office on University Avenue
Hans Buetow:Oh, that's awful.
Steve Buetow:And at Dale.
Hans Buetow:So so Ken would do this?
Steve Buetow:Ken would be assigned to do this. From Mattie? From Mattie. Oh. That's my understanding how
Cathy de Moll:that hurts. Awful.
Hans Buetow:That's really hard. Yes. So let's keep going with it because we might get some clues in this paragraph that I'd like you all to help unpack, but also we'll get it more of a sense of where the two of them are right now. So she completely forgot that last Saturday she had to do it. She said Monday morning, dad thought about it.
Hans Buetow:At about 09:30, his attorney called me.
Steve Buetow:First thing when he got into the office. Carl had all
Hans Buetow:the right. He said it really didn't matter, but I'll bet the old man was sore, and he had to make a trip down there for nothing. Oh. I'm putting that juice on there, but you know what? I bet that's the tone of that.
Hans Buetow:Mhmm. But I really was glad I had forgotten because then I didn't have to be uncomfortable by seeing him.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. We learned very early on that you did not mention one in the presence of the other. Yeah. They live four blocks from each other and and had a common friendships and religious organizations, and we and as far as I know, the only time, at least the only time I ever saw them in the same room Yeah. Was at my sister's wedding.
Steve Buetow:Wow.
Hans Buetow:But here we go because she says, so he asked us to stop into his office in the afternoon.
Steve Buetow:The the lawyer did.
Hans Buetow:Yep. Dad had to sign it too, and he didn't like it a little bit. But if he survived me, he could claim a share in the property. We, the attorney and I, finally persuaded him to sign.
Steve Buetow:This would be Matt. This would
Cathy de Moll:be Matt.
Steve Buetow:Oh. Having Matt inherit Carl's money must have driven Carl.
Cathy de Moll:Oh my god. Yeah.
Hans Buetow:Absolutely preserved. Oh, that's such an interesting perspective. Oh, yeah. Matt said he wasn't in the habit of signing anything he knew nothing about. You remember when you arrived at majority twenty one years, I was to release that lien.
Steve Buetow:Oh, because it was no longer childcare.
Hans Buetow:Now I suppose he is happy. It's all his. That would be Carl, I'm guessing, is she what she's referring to. The attorney said the party who held the mortgage wanted a new one written up as the old one had become outdated. She will she calls him an old man.
Hans Buetow:She says the part the party who held the mortgage, she will not say his name. Oh my god. It's isn't that wild?
Cathy de Moll:So the lien would have been put on the mortgage after the divorce Yes. When he didn't pay alimony or something?
Steve Buetow:Yes. Exactly. Okay.
Hans Buetow:Well, welcome to the party, Carl, because this like, what a perfect introduction to the to the old man.
Cathy de Moll:It's true. Yeah. You can't find anything redeeming about it whatsoever.
Hans Buetow:Right? And we're gonna try. Like, Carl was a was a full human, three-dimensional human being who I'm excited to have something positive to say. He was an architect. He made beautiful buildings.
Steve Buetow:He did and and and wonderful buildings. The building that was just torn down, the Hamlin Library, he is credited with designing. He did exacting drawings of it beautifully detailed. He only had an eighth grade education, but by the time he was in in the nineteen fifties, he was an award winning architect. So he is presently in the two thousands quite revered for his design work
Hans Buetow:Yeah.
Steve Buetow:And the work he has done for the city of Saint Paul.
Hans Buetow:And he thinks he should be revered in the nineteen forties for that same work. That's very nineteen forties, fifties, sixties, seventies throughout his correspondence. He expresses very clearly he wants to be revered, and he should be revered for his work. Well, we move on from Carl, which is a summary of the weather, which has been, Mattie says, quite summer like lately. No.
Hans Buetow:The snow is at the lake, honey. Not here. We've been moving around 60 some some days. I did wear my fur coat for a few days. Fur coat.
Hans Buetow:Yes. But it's nice again now. So next week is Thanksgiving. She says, I don't like to think of Thanksgiving without you boys. You two really got such a kick out of that meal.
Hans Buetow:You two boys being Ken and Bud Yes. Yep. Stepson. You two really got such a kick out of that meal. I suppose I will ask the rest, but I miss you most.
Hans Buetow:Well, my dear, I guess I'd better get dressed for Red Cross and hope you have a very pleasant Thanksgiving, and you will get a chance to go to church. God bless you, darling, and keep you safe from all harm and keep you well. Love, mom. So I guess in summary, should she should she turn down ladies aide presidency?
Cathy de Moll:I bet she takes it.
Hans Buetow:You bet she takes it?
Steve Buetow:Yeah. Oh, I'm thinking she will,
Hans Buetow:but but should she? And we're gonna hear a lot about it. It's probably Nice. It'll make our letters very interesting. Right.
Steve Buetow:More drama, and and then, right, back and forth from the lake.
Hans Buetow:Yep. Yep. It'll become quite challenging. Yep. So next week, Thanksgiving.
Hans Buetow:So that is Mattie's World for 11/20/1942. Thank you so, so, so much for joining us, and thank you, mom,
Cathy de Moll:Kathy. Thank you. Thanks for including me. I really appreciate it.
Hans Buetow:You're absolutely included. You're part of the family, and you are also a part of the family, and I mean that in the broadest possible sense. You're absolutely a part of the family. So tell us what you think. Do have any stories or corrections, context, anything you wanna say to us?
Hans Buetow:You can find out how to do that by going to moth,moth,moth.family. Our theme music is by Matt Buto, and our logo and art is by Amy Kirkpatrick. I'm Hans Buteau. And I'm Steve Buteau. And you are incredible for spending this time with us.
Hans Buetow:Thank you so much.